Windows 8, Metro UI and Sencha

Windows 8, Metro UI and Sencha

I was reading an article lately about the new Metro UI in Windows 8 where essentially all new applications can be delivered in HTML 5 or XAML.

Although I haven't yet had the opportunity to fully digest the ramifications of this - it does raise some interesting questions about what role Sencha could play in delivering desktop applications (what-ever definition you use for that now-a-days) to the Windows platform. The line between a true desktop application and a web application is already becoming very fuzzy (see Chrome book shown at the Sencha conference, Google apps, etc etc)

With the latest developments in HTML 5 (local storage is a good example) the line between a desktop application and a web application is unclear - this only furthers this - especially if you consider what I expect would be a OS abstraction / interface layer similar to what we already see in the Sencha Touch platform.

I for one am very excited to see Windows 8 flood the market... hope the corporate world adopts fast but that won't happen

So yes... looks like web apps will be launchable just like native apps and have more device APIs available. We are well aware of this and this does create a huge opportunity for us to develop things that will work with it. Love it or hate it, Windows is still the largest OS but Windows 8 looks fantastic!

Not just Sencha Touch but Ext JS can be bundled up. It's a good day to be a web dev

Having read further into the capabilities of the pending Win 8 platform - this blurs the line between a desktop interface and a "mobile" like interface - which has implications for the distinction between the ExtJS and Touch platforms.

I would love to be able to develop against a single library and target the output based on the device - whether that would be a "standard" mobile, a Win 8 UI, or traditional web app. That would require some pretty heavy lifting on behalf of the Sencha libraries but wow would that be fantastic.

Having read further into the capabilities of the pending Win 8 platform - this blurs the line between a desktop interface and a "mobile" like interface - which has implications for the distinction between the ExtJS and Touch platforms.

I would love to be able to develop against a single library and target the output based on the device - whether that would be a "standard" mobile, a Win 8 UI, or traditional web app. That would require some pretty heavy lifting on behalf of the Sencha libraries but wow would that be fantastic.

Whatty

Don't think it would be hard... use some meta tags to load certain libraries (or a small bootloading lib) so you can load either Ext JS or Sencha Touch based on device type and then you can load certain applications based on that also.